What's in a Name?
by Evnissyn
Summary: [Oneshot] A short story about Akito's name.


DISCLAIMER: Fruits Basket does not belong to Evnissyn.

A/N: Ths is a very short littlestory on Akito's name. This whole thing is based on the premise that Wikipedia is right about Akito's name and that my Chinese and Japanese dictionaries have not failed me completely.

EDIT (11/22/05) - NOTE: My dictionaries really HAVE failed me. I'll tell you why at the end of the thing.

There is a spoiler from book 11 - what Akito's place is in the juunishi. If you don't know and don't want to know, then don't read

* * *

**What's in a Name?**

I do not like to learn kanji. The words are always so inconsistent.

I sometimes think that I have always hated learning kanji, but if I really think about it, I believe I really started disliking kanji when I was seven years old.

– – – – –

"Akito-san!"

I sat up, glancing out the windows to see where the sun was. I rarely used electronic watches or mechanical clocks – with parts of all twelve juunishi in me, I could easily tap into their 'animal instincts' to accurately tell time by nature's clock.

And, according to the sun, it was time for my calligraphy class.

After ten frustrating minutes, I lost my patience. As usual. "Get out, Takashi! Go away!"

Takashi hurriedly obeyed. The last time he'd been here, I'd thrown a vase at his head.

Shigure rushed in.

"Leave me!" I screamed.

Shigure grabbed me by the wrists. I could see him casting about for a way to calm me down. "How about instead of doing calligraphy (It's so boring and useless. Who handwrites anything nowadays?), let's play with kanji, hm? How 'bout it, Akito-san?"

I glowered, pulled my wrists out of his grip, and refused to look at him. But I knew he was relieved. I'd calmed down for now and that was something. "No."

"Ah, but it won't be like Takashi-san's boring old kanji classes, Akito-san. No, no, it'll be Shigure's fun-fun name-play kanji class!"

I frowned. There he goes making strange names for boring things again. But I was intrigued. I knew that that was Shigure's desired result, but I bit anyway. "Okay."

"Now, let's pick someone you know, anyone."

I considered. "Shigure."

A startled looked flickered over Shigure's face, but it was replaced by an impish smile so quickly, I wasn't sure I really saw it. "Now, here, write down how you think my name might written."

I frowned down at the paper, absent-mindedly accepting the brush Shigure handed me, already deep in the puzzle of figuring out Shigure's name. The name might be divided as Shi-gure or Shigu-re or Shi-gu-re. That much I knew. But there were lost of ways any of the three might come out, as names weren't always nice, neat, everyday phrases. But if Shigure's name _was_ a real phrase …

I wrote down the kanji for 'time' and 'rain', which, when combined, meant 'drizzle'.

Shigure smiled enigmatically. "No, that's not it. Try again."

Well, that was the phrase idea scrapped and out the window. Time for random combinations.

After five minutes and two sheets of paper convered with 'shi's' and 'gure's', Shigure finally gave in and wrote his name for me.

Next was Ayame's name. Then Hatori's. (I lost my temper when Shigure finally told me that Hatori's name did not consist of kanji but of plain old hiragana. But I quickly calmed down and went on with the game – I could never be angry at Shigure for long.) Then Kureno's.

Finally, Shigure stretched and said, "Okay, okay! I think that's enough for one day!"

I grabbed Shigure's sleeve. "Please! One more?"

Shigure pursed his lips in contemplation. "Okay! One last name and I'm calling it quits."

"Akito," I said immediately.

A shadow seemed to darken Shigure's face. But like the startled look from before, it disappeared beneath another impish smile. "Okay, you know the drill!"

Well, 'to' was probably 'person' – nearly every name ending in 'to' had 'to' written as 'person'. I wrote that down, looking up at Shigure's face for his nod of approval or head-shake of rejection.

Shigure nodded as always, but I noticed he was no longer smiling. I bent back over the paper. 'Aki' could be any number of things. 'Bright', 'brilliant', 'intelligent', 'crystal', 'autumn', just to name a few. I picked one at random. 'Crystal'.

I looked up again and froze when I saw Shigure's expression. The shadowed, haunted look had come back. "Akito-san," he said softly. "Maybe we should stop now. We'll continue tomorrow."

I frowned. "Why?" I demanded. "Why won't you let me do my name?"

Shigure closed his eyes. "Akito-san, not now."

I jumped to my feet. "Tell me."

"Akito-san –"

"TELL ME!"

Shigure opened his eyes. "Okay." He picked up the brush I'd flung down on the desk and carefully wrote two kanji. "That is your name, Akito-san."

I stared at the two words, studying them, memorizing them. The second word was 'person'. But the first word … The radical, or the most important part of the kanii word, was a shortened form of 'heart'. So the word had something to do with the heart, or feelings. The other half … was it the non-radical side of the kanji for 'apology'?

"Akito," Shigure whispered, reaching over to trace the kanji with his forefinger. "Person–" he traced the second kanji "– who –" he began tracing the first kanji "– resents." He pulled his hand away.

– – – – –

I never much cared for kanji lessons after that.

And I never called Ren 'Okaasan' ever again.

* * *

A/N: So, how'd you like it?

EDIT: Okay, in reality, the kanji for "Aki" only means "resent" in Chinese, and then only as a secondary meaning. The primary meaning in both Japanese and Chinese is really "satisfaction". I'm sorry - it took me awhile before I finally figured out that I shouldn't rely so heavily on Chinese meanings.


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